Either party may request a review of their child support order to see if the monthly support is appropriate if it has been over35 months since the date of the last support order. For support orders less than three years old, a substantial change of circumstances will need to be shown by the party seeking a modification before a modification review can be made. Examples of substantial change are a change in the physical custody of a subject child or a disabling injury to a parent with involuntary loss of income.

The requesting party will be sent a request form, income and expense forms, and forms seeking information available on health care coverage for the children. When these are completed and returned, the other party will then be sent income and expense forms, and given a minimum of 30 days to complete and return the paperwork to our office. After that the caseworker will apply the State of Oregon guidelines to compute a recommended child support order amount.

Each party will receive a notice regarding the new amount. At that time, either party may request an administrative hearing if either does not agree to the requested amount. The Administrative Hearing is by telephone with an Administrative Law Judge. A party may have their own attorney represent them. A party may present information which rebuts the proposed amount. If no administrative hearing is requested or after the administrative law judge issues an order, additional documents are created by our office are sent to the court to finalize the modification order. Either party can request the court to review the order.

Modifications will only affect future support. If a party needs immediate relief, they may want to contact a private attorney, or file for relief with the appropriate court directly. The Administrative process generally takes several months to complete from the date written application forms are submitted to our office even if uncontested. The effective date of a modification cannot be before the date that a non-requesting party is served with the notice regarding the new child support amount; therefore, it will not change the amount until after several months after the request is received and steps in the process have been completed.